Loud, raucous, if unintelligible, words were added from behind the moonlit vision, but not much could be heard. One young man remonstrated angrily on my train about the women; the sense of his argument was not moral outrage but that the bottoms were not of sufficient quality to be waved at him. I suspect that one day he will dream of having any bottoms waved at him.
Presumably, CCTV cameras caught the flashers in action, but I doubt that they are readers of Iz Ruk v Ruki, where Sergei is looking for the naked this week.
It is one of the first ads in the "Others" section, looking for "girls and boys" without complexes for the television series, "Goliye I Smeshniye" (Naked and Funny).
"Without complexes" is one of the Russian ad world's favorite phrases. In principle, the phrase could be used when on a job search for miners: "No agoraphobia complexes, please." But it is often more used when looking for someone for whom a naked run through Red Square to moon at the Kremlin is but a typical Saturday night, even if it is a bit of a long journey from Bexley.
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This ad, however, was recruiting for a show in which unsuspecting male members of the public come unexpectedly face to face with naked breasts and bums. The two women who start to take each other's clothes off in the coupe of the train is one of the show's most popular segments.
There are also some sketches involving men, but these seem to involve the same actor sticking a banana down his pants and chasing the woman in a way that would constitute a criminal offense in most countries -- so the search for different male members of the team seemed a new move for the show.
But Sergei was bemused at the phone call because his name wasn't Sergei, and although he had heard of "Goliye and Smeshniye," he certainly wasn't recruiting anyone to jump out on Kutuzovsky Prospekt and flash their breasts at a speeding Audi (At least not without a bulletproof vest, but that would somewhat dilute the idea).
"But this is your number?"
"Yes."
"And the date of birth listed, rather oddly, in the ad is yours?"
"Yes it is," he said, "It must be a friend's joke."
By this time I would have asked him if at least he was funny naked, but like the girls on the platform, our moment had passed.
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